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During a standard accreditation review, the State Board of Education found some areas of concern in the education program at SCSU. (Published Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014)

Southern Connecticut State University's School of Education has been placed on probation for three years, and students are trying to figure out how this will affect their studies.

“It was surprise and shock, and a few of my classmates were panicking too, because no one knew what it meant,” said Jessica Myers, a senior in the education program.

During a standard accreditation review, the State Board of Education found some areas of concern in the education program, including the school's process for tracking data and assessing student progress.

SCSU's undergraduate programs are not the issue. Collecting data on graduate studies is still a work in progress.

“It's a way to track the effectiveness of the program and to get that to feed that back in, so we're continually improving. It's a continuous improvement model," said School of Education Dean Dr. Stephen Hegedus. "So some of those assessments have to be put in place in the advanced program model as well.”

A spokesperson for SCSU said there are no areas of improvement or concern when it came to faculty, curriculum or quality of instruction.

“We are accredited by our national organization. We have met all the standards," said SCSU President Dr. Mary Papazian. "It has no impact on our students. It has no impact on the quality of our faculty, the quality of our teaching and learning.”

The university is currently under probationary approval and has three years to make improvements. School officials said within one year all the necessary data tracking programs will be in place.

“Southern's a great school. Southern started as a teaching school. That's what Southern is known for. That's what we all know Southern for,” said Myers.